Gay flag flies over Iloilo City
By Nestor Burgos
Inquirer News Service


TEN men and women, who were either gays and lesbians or straight, waved the huge flag in pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet inside the moviehouse. For the first time, the Rainbow Flag, the international gay community symbol, was unfurled in Iloilo City as Ilongos joined in the celebration of gay pride.

The ceremony opened Iloilo City's first-ever Pink Film Festival, which ran from July 30 to Aug. 1 at SM City. It was also the last leg of the 2nd International Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival that ran at SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City from June 15 to 22, the UP Film Institute on June 26-July 3, SM Manila on June 30-July 6, and SM Baguio on July 9-11.

"We are your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, teachers, priests...," said independent filmmaker Sam Prudente during the festival opening in Iloilo City.


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Social Workers Argue For Jailed Gay Teen 
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(Topeka, Kansas) The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its Kansas chapter today called on the Kansas Supreme Court to reverse the conviction of a teenager who is serving a prison sentence 13 times longer than he would have received if he were heterosexual.

Matthew Limon is appealing a 206-month prison sentence he received shortly after turning 18 because while he was a resident at a private school for developmentally disabled youth he performed consensual oral sex on another teenager.

Limon would have served a maximum of 15 months in jail under the Kansas law had the other teenager been female.  But because the state's "Romeo and Juliet" law applies only to heterosexuals, Limon was convicted under the much harsher state sodomy law.

The Kansas Supreme Court agreed last month to hear the case after the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in January.  Limon's case had landed back before the lower court after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to reconsider the matter in light of the Supreme Court's decision last summer in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down all same-sex-only sodomy laws.